by LA
Luke 16:1-13
When I read Luke 16:1-13, I am forced to think about the state of American politics today, where we find certain political families who have never once planted a crop, offered a legitimate service, traded a single good at market nor invented or assembled one widget. Yet somehow they were able to amass a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars. An impossibility for a career in public service, making it more than obvious that they are selling the favors of their positions much like the steward in this reading. These sorts are always in the press, going form one scandal to the next, lying their way to higher and higher offices, with no end in sight.
How can this continue to happen? Aren’t we warned by the Messiah himself in this very passage, never to promote such a person because “he [or she] that is unjust in the least is unjust in much”? Is it just the nature of our political system, that it resembles a sewer so much that the same sorts of things can’t help but float to the top? If that’s not the answer then why aren’t these types ever ousted from power, tarred and feathered by the press or run out of office like the bastards they are?
I believe that the responsibility resides with us, the believers in the general public. We have allowed ourselves to succumb to such a state of severe biblical ignorance that the average person on the street no longer has any idea what they Bible says about a certain subject of why. This is our failure and now most are doomed to fall victim to the most basic follies warned about in the Scriptures.
How could we have let this happen? Well, it seems that everyone is busy nowadays. We work harder and longer for less pay than before. There are so many more things out there to worry about, with global warming and your carbon footprint, race relations, terrorism, etc. Not to mention that we are all inundated with every kind of electronic distraction from smart phones, to tablets to google glasses to even interactive video games so addictive and compelling that people are missing work and school and even walking into traffic because they can’t pull their attentions away from the screen. In short, we have allowed ourselves to get distracted by nonsense; and, worse yet, we have made these distractions our masters, ignoring the warning the Messiah gave us about having two masters in this same reading!
Perhaps if we focused more on serving our Almighty Father in Heaven instead of lusting after the latest tweet from our favorite celebrity, or being the first in line to buy the latest gadget or streaming the most current episode of our choice web series, the state of our politics and maybe even the politicians themselves would be of a much finer quality.
They say that in a representative government such as ours that the politicians are a reflections of the character of the electorate. Well, look into the mirror America. Do you like what you see? You were created in the image of the Most High. Is that what you see being reflected back at you?
Prison Lectionary 